A man has been jailed for eight months after he and his parents all faced trial for child abuse at a North Yorkshire children's home.

Michael Raine was in his teens when he indecently assaulted two residents at the home where he lived with his parents in a staff flat.

His father, Sidney, 60, was cleared of sexual child abuse at a separate trial last December and Judge Jonathan Crabtree threw out child cruelty charges against his mother, Isabella, 57, before a jury was sworn in.

The judge told Michael Raine, 36, of Swinton Court, Harrogate, that his actions were "an atrocious piece of bullying of the worst kind".

The jury at York Crown Court took only two hours to find the son guilty of two indecent assaults on a girl who was aged about ten at the time of the incidents at the now-closed National Children's Home in Harrogate.

But he was acquitted of gross indecency towards an older girl who was also a resident at the home.

The court heard that at a hearing last week Michael Raine, admitted three indecent assaults against a third girl who was aged about 12.

His barrister, John Graham, said these came from consensual "heavy petting".

All the offences were said to have happened in the late 1970s or early 1980s when Sidney and Isabella Raine were house parents to the abused girls and he was in his mid-teens.

Prosecutor Andrew Woolman had earlier told the court that Raine had indecently assaulted the youngest girl once a week over a long period.

Sentencing Raine, Judge Crabtree told him the sentence had to reflect the penalty he would have been given had he faced a court at the time the offences were committed.

He told him: "The equivalent is eight months' imprisonment and I think that is the right penalty.

"It may horrify your parents but in the end justice has to be seen to be done."

He accepted that at the time of the offences Raine was at an age of sexual experimentation and had not gone on to commit further offences.

But he added: "You were the house parents' son and this was really an atrocious piece of bullying of the worst possible kind."

NCH Action for Children spokeswoman Genevieve Clark said after the verdict: "We are shocked that this could have happened to children that were under our care.

"The safety of children in our care is always our primary concern and this shows we can never be complacent."

She declined to comment specifically on Raine's sentence adding that the charity respected the court's verdict.

Last month, Reginald William Albert Chandler, 72, of Moortown, Leeds, was jailed for eight years after admitting 18 indecent assaults on boys at the children's home between 1964 and 1969 when he was a carer there. He also pleaded guilty to six unrelated indecent assaults on boys between 1991 and 1999.

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